My heart was racing. I knew I didn’t have much time. I knew if I didn’t get those shoes back before the benefit, MarySue would return them tomorrow damaged or stained and she’d never pay Dolce the money she owed her. Or she’d sell her house and leave town with the shoes on her feet. Dolce would face financial ruin, I’d be out of work and . . . I . . . I didn’t know what I’d do.
Right now I had to do what I could to stop MarySue. I dragged the ladder from the tree to the back of the house. I climbed up a few steps and paused, my fingers gripping the steel rungs. I half expected someone to pull it out from under me. Maybe Smythe, maybe Jim Jensen, MarySue’s husband. Maybe MarySue herself. But nothing happened except the ladder wobbled. I leaned into the house and grabbed a handful of the ivy that covered the wall. I took a deep breath and climbed higher. My fingers were so stiff I could barely hold on to the rungs of the ladder.
I was opposite a window level with the second floor. Afraid of heights, I didn’t dare look down or I’d get dizzy and fall. Where was MarySue? Where were her shoes? No, not her shoes, she hadn’t paid for them.
A moment later I had the answer to my questions. MarySue came to the window. Her eyes bulged when she saw me looking in at her. She was wearing a simple but costly black beaded sweater dress by Chloé. She was right. She needed those silver shoes to set it off. But from that angle I couldn’t tell if she was wearing them now or not. I almost felt for her. The fashionista in me almost wanted her to have them. I almost felt like climbing down the ladder and going home. No one would blame me. No one would know I’d failed except MarySue, and she’d be glad I had. But I didn’t. I rapped on the window. “Give me the shoes,” I shouted.
She shook her head. Then she opened the window. Her cool blue eyes darted from my face to my shoulders to my white knuckles. She put both hands on my shoulders and pushed. The ladder tilted backward. I reached out to grab something, anything. Preferably MarySue. The ladder swayed forward then backward again. I swayed with it. I screamed as I felt myself falling, falling backward into the branches of the dead oak tree. Then everything went black.
“Dr. Foster. Calling Dr. Foster. Report to the ER. Marjorie Lambert, fourth-floor Obstetrics stat. Dr. Kramer, you have a call on line three.”
The voices were so loud they penetrated my poor brain. Where in the hell was I, and how did I get there? I opened my eyes, but the lights were so bright I quickly closed them. All I knew was I was flat on my back in a hallway and people were rushing past me shouting out instructions. Suddenly I was moving too. Someone was pushing me down the hall.
“How are we feeling?” the woman asked.
“Terrible,” I mumbled. “My head hurts. Who are you? Where am I? Where are we going?”
“I’m Winnie Bijou, LVN. We’re at San Francisco General Hospital. You might have a slight concussion and trauma to an extremity, but we’ve been busy with other more serious stuff. Don’t worry, you’re next. Lucky you, you get to see Dr. Rhodes. Trust me, it’s worth the wait.” Winnie Bijou giggled.
Worth the wait? How long had I been waiting? So I had a concussion? The last thing I remembered was falling off a ladder into a tree. But where and why I had no idea. Why would I climb up a ladder when I was scared to death of heights?
“Nurse Bijou,” I said with a shiver of apprehension. “Do I have amnesia?”
“Possible,” she said as we turned the corner and headed down another hall. “Doesn’t say anything about it on your chart. Says you were brought in wearing ballet flats by someone who didn’t leave a name. Remember who that was?”
“Not really, no. I mean I don’t know who it could have been because . . .” I drifted off, not able to think clearly.
“Here we are.” She went around the gurney and pushed open the door to a small examining room. I saw she was someone about my age in a crisp white uniform—admirable, I thought, for someone working the ER on a long, injury-filled Saturday night.
Once in the small room, Nurse Bijou propped up my head on a pillow. She asked me for some personal information for my chart, then she wrapped a cuff around my arm, gave a cursory glance at my Bakelite bracelet and stuck a thermometer in my mouth. There was a knock on the door and another nurse whose badge said “Opal Chasseure RN” came in.
“Dr. Rhodes is on his way,” she said. “He works the ER, but he’s a specialist in sports injuries.”
“This isn’t a sports injury,” I said when Nurse Bijou had removed the thermometer from my mouth and the cuff from my arm. “I mean, I don’t think it is because I don’t do sports, except for kung fu.” Maybe my memory was coming back to me by inches. They say your long-term memory returns first. Maybe that’s all I’d ever get back.
“We’ll let Dr. Rhodes decide what it is or it isn’t,” Nurse Chasseure said briskly. “Nurse Bijou, I have everything covered here.”
By her tone I gathered she meant, “Butt out.”
Nurse Bijou got the message and when the door opened to admit Dr. Jonathan Rhodes, she scurried out. That left the three of us, one tall, strapping, sun-bleached blond-haired god of a doctor, one starchy nurse and me, half out of my mind but still able to appreciate a gorgeous man. My head floated somewhere above me and I closed my eyes. The smell of antiseptic hung in the air. Maybe I’d gotten too big a whiff. Or maybe this was all a dream. If it wasn’t, I was hoping I was wearing my new lingerie just in case Dr. Rhodes had me strip down for a full-body scan. It had been so long since I’d gotten dressed, I couldn’t remember. After my accident, I was lucky to remember my name. It turned out all the doctor cared about was my ankle.
“How did this happen?” Dr. Rhodes said. His deep voice cut through the fog of my brain. He put his hand on my forehead. I opened my eyes and then it all came back to me in a blinding flash. MarySue, the shoes and the ladder. The shoes. Where were they?
“I fell off a ladder. It’s my foot. I think I sprained my ankle.”
Dr. Rhodes carefully removed one metallic ballet flat and wrapped his strong, caring fingers around my ankle. I winced. “Nurse Chasseure, would you get an ACE bandage and wrap the patient’s ankle?”
Opal left and I was alone with Dr. McDreamy Rhodes.
“You have a grade-one sprain and a mild concussion,” he said. “I’m prescribing some anti-inflammatory medicine along with cold packs for your ankle. As for your concussion, these things usually go away by themselves. I recommend monitoring and rest at least for a few days.”
I felt better just hearing his voice and was reassured by his bedside manner. Combined with his looks, this guy was going far. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him rise to be surgeon general or at least get his own reality TV program.
“So, Ms. Rita Jewel,” he said, looking up from where he was writing on my chart. “Not where you thought you’d end up on a Saturday night.”
“No,” I said. “I was actually on my way somewhere when I got sidetracked and fell into a dead oak tree. That’s all I remember until I got here.” What I remembered was I was on my way to get the silver shoes back when I ran into trouble. But why bore the doctor with irrelevant details like that? I looked at my watch. It was four o’clock in the morning. The Benefit was over. MarySue had gotten away with the shoes. I felt weak and helpless. My ankle was throbbing.